Thursday, October 24, 2013

where bread illustrates mathematical error

When I last left you, I had two loaves worth of brioche dough left in the refrigerator. What is a girl to do? Clearly the only option was to make up two more loaves!

Naturally, I had to pull out a single loaf of brioche. A test, if you will. The baseline. So I know what it tastes like without any fancy adornments. So two pounds of dough was removed, shaped, and dropped into a prepared pan for the rise.

This left me with a pound and a half of dough. Quite the nice deal, this recipe. It makes up enough for two fancy loaves of a pound and a half each and a two pound loaf of plain. I had already made up the pumpkin loaf and wanted something a little more interesting. Quickly flipping through the original Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day turned up Chocolate Prune Bread. Fantabulous!

So again, I dusted and pulled out my remaining pound and a half of dough and rolled it out to a half inch thick rectangle. This is thicker than the Pumpkin Swirl Bread but there will be a lot more solid goods to be held by this rectangle!

The directions were pretty clear at this point. I was to roll the dough...

all rolled up and seam sealed

and then begin folding it up, turning between folds, and using the heel of my hand to press down. Bits and pieces were to come out potentially and this was not to worry me. It was all in the name of filling distribution. Here, dear reader, is where geometry failed me. I folded a few times.

see? folded. And I even turned to get to this point

And I pressed a bit as well. With my hand.

and you can see where bits have made an appearance as it sits there in its greased and sugared pan, rising for 90 minutes under a loosely placed (and sprayed with canola oil) sheet of plastic wrap

Alas, there was not nearly enough turning. And I can, in retrospect, see exactly how I created this tube of un-chunk-filled brioche running down the center of the loaf!

Picture the tube without the prune anomaly there in the middle. All the goods were evenly distributed directly under the crust.

But as you can see, I did not care! It is one of the most delicious loaves I have ever had, much less created myself! I will definitely be making this again, with ::ahem:: more folding and heel of hand pressing. Anyway, 350F oven, for 40-50 minutes, remove from pan, allow to cool before cutting. Bon appetit!